telegram-bot

Telegram Bot Integration

When setting up or modifying Telegram bot integration for OpenClaw agents.

Setup

1. Create a bot via @BotFather on Telegram
2. Save the token (format: 1234567890:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrSTUvwxYZ)
3. Get your chat ID by messaging @userinfobot
4. Add to secrets: TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN and TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID

Sending Messages

function sendTelegram(token, chatId, text) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const body = JSON.stringify({ chat_id: chatId, text: text });
    const req = require("https").request({
      hostname: "api.telegram.org",
      path: `/bot${token}/sendMessage`,
      method: "POST",
      headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json", "Content-Length": Buffer.byteLength(body) },
    }, res => {
      let b = "";
      res.on("data", d => b += d);
      res.on("end", () => resolve(JSON.parse(b)));
    });
    req.on("error", reject);
    req.write(body);
    req.end();
  });
}

Important: Use Plain Text

Never use parse_mode: "Markdown" or parse_mode: "MarkdownV2". Dynamic content (URLs, titles, code) often contains []_* characters that break Markdown parsing and cause "Bad Request: can't parse entities" errors.

Always send plain text. If you need formatting, use parse_mode: "HTML" which is more forgiving.

Message Length Limits

Telegram messages have a 4096 character limit. For long reports:

function sendLongMessage(token, chatId, text) {
  const chunks = [];
  const lines = text.split("\n");
  let current = "";

  for (const line of lines) {
    if ((current + "\n" + line).length > 4000) {
      chunks.push(current);
      current = line;
    } else {
      current += (current ? "\n" : "") + line;
    }
  }
  if (current) chunks.push(current);

  return chunks.reduce((p, chunk, i) =>
    p.then(() => sendTelegram(token, chatId, chunk))
      .then(() => i < chunks.length - 1 ? new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 500)) : null),
    Promise.resolve()
  );
}